


Reflections

by Phosphorescent



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Echoes of History, Gen, Self-Reflection, TLJ speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phosphorescent/pseuds/Phosphorescent
Summary: When Luke looks at Rey, all he can see are his own failures and fears reflected back at him. All he can see is fire and rubble and dead children. All he can see is his nephew’s face.





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Or, in which I attempt to make sense of Luke's actions in those TLJ trailers. Will undoubtedly be jossed, especially since I'm 99.9% sure some of the lines I've included here are from two completely separate scenes. (Also, it's _hard_ to predict what direction they plan on taking Luke's characterization in TLJ at the moment—there's only so much I can extrapolate from a few seconds here and there.)

Is this what it had been like for Obi-Wan?

Waking each morning with the knowledge that his world was burnt to the ground because of a boy he’d taught? ~~Because of a boy he’d _loved_?~~  

Because of a boy he'd failed.

The endless grief and guilt and anger, blood on his tongue and ash in his heart.

The loneliness.

The endurance. The courage.

He hadn’t fully appreciated Obi-Wan’s courage back then. (Or had it been foolishness… even a sort of arrogance?)

Now, as a girl with tremendous power stands before him, begging for his help, Luke begins to understand why Yoda had been so reluctant to teach him. Why he had been so brusque, so cantankerous.

It has little to do with the student and everything to do with the teacher.

When Luke looks at Rey, all he can see are his own failures and fears reflected back at him. All he can see is fire and rubble and dead children. All he can see is his nephew’s face.

And in the broken mirror that is his nephew's face, Luke also sees who he himself might have become. Who he nearly  _did_ become. (Who he might still become.)

This girl, this Rey, deserves better than that.

How had Obi-Wan done it? How had he been able to look at Luke, painfully aware of all that could go wrong, and teach him  _anyway_?

Luke isn’t naïve. He knows Obi-Wan and Yoda had taught him because they were desperate. They had manipulated him because they were desperate. They had gambled on him and they had won, if not necessarily in the way they had intended.

But still…

_How?_

“I’ve seen this raw strength only once before,” Luke murmurs, half to himself. “It didn’t scare me enough then… It does now.”

Rey doesn't frighten him in and of herself—it's what she represents: a pivot point on which the galaxy rests, able to shift its course on a whim. Of his own ability to tilt that pivot point with his all-too-flawed teachings.

And they  _are_  flawed, he knows.

Obi-Wan and Yoda had been wrong about so much; he doesn't think they were fully aware  _how_  wrong they'd been until the very end. And if that's the case, who is to say how much he himself is still wrong about? 

_Did you ever doubt the path you were setting me on, Obi-Wan? Did you ever doubt your own path?_

_How did you deal with the memories? How did you deal with this fear, constricting your chest and clawing at the back of your throat?_

“Kylo failed you," Rey calls after him. 

He turns around to see her staring at him, shoulders set with determination as she adds, "I won’t.”

And then the past comes to him in a distant echo, like concentric ripples on the surface of time’s pond. The galaxy has a strange sense of humor; if he weren’t so weary, he would laugh.

Has it always been thus?

The student, young and brash and earnest. The teacher, wrinkled and wary and worn.

_“I won’t fail you. I’m not afraid.”_

_“Oh, you will be. You will be.”_  


End file.
